


soldier & scientist

by candybank



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Divergent AU, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 01:32:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18110525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candybank/pseuds/candybank
Summary: dauntless-born minghao accompanies erudite-turned-dauntless mingyu to get his first tattoo.





	soldier & scientist

the weeks are stretched long and hard. mingyu feels like a rubber band one inch tighter from snapping. spasms have spread across his arms, bones jelly and ligaments putty by the time he lays his body to rest. he closes his eyes, excited for sleep to take him when—

“ _hey_ ,” he’s barely asleep when minghao shakes him awake, voice a sharp whisper piercing right through the beginnings of a dream. mingyu’s body is forcefully extracted from rest, and his bitterness about it makes his movements slow. as if he doesn’t have a choice, he lifts his heavy eyelids open and squints.

he sees the vague outline of a lean boy with hair falling over his eyes and under his ears. he already knows who it is, but he has to rub the tiredness out of his eyes to really see clearly.

“minghao… what—“

“let’s go out,” minghao says, and now, even in the darkness, mingyu can see the grin on his mouth.

“get up,” minghao shakes him more violently, bed springs creaking underneath him, before he gets up and disappears into purple light.

he knows he should be quicker to wake up, faster to respond. they’ve been training for weeks and months, but it’s the weekend. and tomorrow, all they have to do is run a few laps and shoot a few guns in the afternoon, and he’d been looking forward to this long night’s rest for days. still, he stumbles through the darkness to get to his friend.

hair a mess, still tugging his black shirt down over his body, mingyu walks with minghao through a part of the city that he has only ever seen in his dreams. purple and white and black lights line the streets, illuminating tiny shops and small stalls that sell everything from food to clothing to shoes and accessories and furniture. as if he knows the city by hand, which, being dauntless-born, mingyu guesses that he does, minghao turns a sharp left that mingyu would have missed if he hadn’t been walking a few steps behind him.

they go through a glass door, and he feels as if he has been transported to a completely different place. it’s the same sky, the same purple and white and black, but it’s quiet and small. and the walls are thick, making everything seem faraway.

“what is this place?” he finds himself asking, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking around far too curiously.

minghao doesn’t answer immediately, and he doesn’t seem to share the same apprehension. in the back of his mind, the very erudite parts of him, this makes mingyu anxious, but he reminds himself to stay only calm and cautious in the face of the unknown, like the dauntless have taught him to.

minghao stops in front of a table, picks up a book and hands it to mingyu. mingyu stares back with question marks for eyes, and minghao only answers with a nod towards the book.

so, like a good soldier, a curious scientist, mingyu flips it open. it’s an album of drawings—tattoo designs, he realizes, now that he looks closer. he’s quick to make the connection.

“i’m not getting a tattoo,” mingyu chuckles, although his eyes don’t leave a spiky full-arm piece taking over an entire page. as soon as he says the words, he feels their meaning dissipate into the air—as if he’d only said it as an instinct, a programed response instead of a decision.

barely anyone in erudite got tattoos. not by law, but by practice, it was taboo. now that he really thinks about it, he can’t quite understand why.

he looks up at minghao, then to the mirror—in it, he catches a glimpse of his friend’s tattoo, or the parts of it that peek out of his shirt, anyway. the unsubtle spikes that extend to the nape of his neck, to the sides of his body. mingyu has seen it—in the locker room, when they’re getting changed, or in the sun, when minghao feels too hot to be in uniform. but he has never truly looked at it, never really understood it, or had been in the position to ask about the spikes like tree-roots and the serpent curled around the thorn-tree like a believer’s hands clasped together in prayer for a false god.

“how about a dragon,” minghao says, kindly steering from calling him out for staring. he walks to stand behind mingyu, and somehow mingyu finds himself facing the wall mirror. “on your back,” minghao adds, tracing a pretend pattern over his shirt, looking at the both of them through the mirror. “or a sleeve,” he offers, eyes flickering from the mirror down to mingyu’s bicep, his forearm, fingers ghosting over the veins protruding from beneath mingyu's skin, irises trailing after his own hands. “you have nice arms,” he comments, squeezing playfully before letting go, and mingyu finds that he doesn’t know what to do with that information.

minghao brings the book back up and sees the page that mingyu had been looking at. “oh, that’s nice…” he says, eyes flickering from the page to mingyu’s skin and the page again, drawing the pattern with his mind. “like that?”

feeling a little dumbfounded, a little startled, a little excited, skin tingly, mingyu bites his lip pensively. he spends a good few minutes looking through more books before choosing a modest half-sleeve of dragon scales and swirling skies. minghao only nods, helps him pick up the stencil off of the wall and bring it to one of the artists.

it’s quick, an intense burning sensation that soon passes. it’ll come back to linger in a few hours, is what he’s told, but for now he can’t feel anything. so, he looks at his arm in the mirror, turning it this way and that. 

minghao laughs, “the dragon looks like you.”

mingyu answers with a frown.

“not in a bad way,” minghao says, “i just… can’t imagine that on anyone else.”

 

*** 

 

it takes all of a year for mingyu to become a full-fledged  _dauntless_ —a soldier, military commands engraved into his brain as deeply as the dragon on his back is inked into the column of his spine. they’d gotten a small apartment together, an affordable place at the edge of the city where they can sleep and fuck in peace on days when they’re not fighting monsters or patrolling borders.

most workdays, it’s sleepy, quiet and tired lovemaking. the world almost still, bed springs still, the sky still, breaths heavy and deep. minghao says they fuck enough that it makes sense to install a mirror on the roof, and mingyu doesn't have a good enough reason, or enough motivation at all, to argue. so, some days, it’s mingyu on top of minghao, rocking into him, minghao’s eyes on the ceiling, watching the dragon on mingyu’s back twist in its canvas. other days it’s rough and quick, trying to sweat out a fever that they don’t have the luxury to medicate any other way, adrenaline pumping through thin veins.

everyday, it’s this. minghao sitting in bed, watching tv, or writing reports, or reading reports. mingyu coming home, and minghao making small talk for as long as he can so he can watch mingyu undress. it’s  _sexy_ , he says, the way the dragon’s tail disappears below the the waistband of mingyu’s jeans, or the way the dragon’s head peeks over his shoulder.

and mingyu, he still doesn’t know what to do when minghao says that. doesn’t know how to respond to it, how to accept a compliment gracefully. once, in retaliation, he’d tried to tell minghao that the serpent wrapped around his left thigh was ‘ _sexy’_ , but all minghao did was say thank you and ride his thigh until he came untouched.

everyday, it’s this. watching the sun rise over the horizon through closed eyes, warm bodies pressed together, cold hands clutched or cracked lips locked. waiting for the sunset again, then again. 


End file.
